The most attractive feature of metasearch is how it helps generate direct-bookings. It enables hoteliers like you to develop long term customer relationship achieve better customer retention and future sales.
But navigating the complexity of metasearch is hard. Not only are the number of metasearch sites growing, but their cost model is changing. Choosing a metasearch campaign strategy to maximise Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) is a challenge. However, a well-designed metasearch strategy results in significantly lower cost of sales compared to booking through OTAs.
The allure of lower cost of sale combined with the benefits of direct-booking makes metasearch an essential part of any hotel’s marketing and distribution plan. But it is important to understand what makes metasearch complex and what steps to take to arrive at a good campaign.
Cross-channel optimisation example
Let’s take one of the causes of metasearch complexity: cross-channel optimisation. This basically means adjusting the parameters of advertising on different metasearch channels to achieve maximum overall ROI.
Consider an example:
The table to the right shows how returns from the overall campaign can be improved by reallocation of marketing dollars between two channels.
In this example, the initial allocation of click volumes across channels A through C resulted in a whopping 13.00 for the ROI of Channel A whereas Channel C was lagging with just 5.29.
In the table below we show how by reallocating the total click volume of 4,500 such that Channel A is allowed to go up to 2,000 clicks while Channel C is limited to 1,000 clicks, the ROI across the channels becomes more balanced, and improves to 8.95 from the initial 7.49.
Note that the law of diminishing returns plays a role in making ROI a complex function to track for any of these channels. You see that doubling the clicks for A more than doubles the cost while bumping up revenue to less than double, resulting in a drop in ROI from 13.00 to 9.00. Channel C shows the converse pattern on halving the click volume.
Now, imagine doing this rebalancing by readjusting the parameters for a number of channels. You can understand how the complexity goes up significantly in this simple scenario.
FREE Guide: Keys to Successful Metasearch Campaigns
In our free guide, Keys to Successful Metasearch Campaigns, we address this and many other factors that contribute to the complexity of metasearch, and give a step by step approach for you to increase direct bookings and efficiency with your hotel marketing on metasearch channels.
This guide will run you through:
- What metasearch is (and why you should care);
- What the major metasearch channels are;
- What the pros and cons of metasearch are;
- The 5 keys to a successful metasearch campaign;
- And more…
For example, topics covered include:
- Year-over-year trends of cost-per-click (CPC), Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), and conversion rates
- Best and worst candidates for Meta—why metasearch works well and why it may NOT work well
- How Rate Parity affects ROAS
- Understanding channel CPCs
- Factors affecting conversions
- Assisted Booking Models—when to use and when NOT to use
- Goals that drive your meta strategy
among others.
